The present invention relates to a procedure and installation for the manufacture of partial laced wiring harnesses.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,766,624 discloses a prior art installation by which the laced wiring harnesses are manufactured. This installation has several feeders for different cable types from which is drawn a specific cable by a roller feeder and which is cut to length by the formation of loops in a cutting-to-length installation. After cutting the cable to length, the cable is disposed at right angles to the feeder transporation installation which carries the cable to a position in front of a baring, fixing and casing installation which is specific for each type of cable, where only then are the other cables which belong to the laced wiring harness added. The disadvantage in this installation is that only one cable can be handled each time. The cutting-to-length process is intermittent and results in a substantial amount of time required for each unit. The machine elements of the cutting-to-length unit are constructed in a very complicated manner and can execute only relatively slow movements. Furthermore, the subsequent units which follow in the process line do not function in accordance with a working cycle, which also requires a substantial amount of time in function thereof. Additionally, the control expenditure for this known installation is very important in the functioning thereof.
An installation for simultaneously leading several cables parallel to each other for cutting the cables to length and the baring thereof is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,353,571. In this installation, all the free ends of the cables are gripped simultaneously and pulled at a constant length. Thereafter, the cables are pulled further to provide a formation of loops in the free chain space. In particular, these two pulling processes with two work cycles are disadvantageous in that the cables are stretched in an uncontrollable manner. After this step, the cables are seized at their rear end portions and further transported together without any direction modification. The rear end portions shortly before being cut are left free, while the front ends are passed over to a transport element. This known installation requires a very long change-over time for the modification of the cutting-to-length program, and also requires numerous cutting-to-length elements. The longest possible length of a cable in this installation is determined by the diameter of the chain wheels of the transportation chain, where the cable loop slack, to preclude hang-ups, cannot come into contact with the lower chain drum. Further, after being cut, the rear cable ends are not controlled.